Saints Draft History

this is a discussion within the Saints Community Forum; All this negative talk reminds me of a story Jerry Clower used to tell. It seems when Jerry was playing for Mississippi State, seems he wasn\'t real good playing defense. He heard his uncle Versi Ledbetter was gravely ill. So ...

All this negative talk reminds me of a story Jerry Clower used to tell. It seems when Jerry was playing for Mississippi State, seems he wasn\'t real good playing defense. He heard his uncle Versi Ledbetter was gravely ill. So Jerry being a good christian boy went to see him. His uncle Versi had seen Jerry play on many occasions. At the end of the visit, Jerry sadly said to his uncle, Uncle Versi I sure hope you get better. With that the old man looked up at Jerry with tired , sick eyes and said. \" Jerry I sure hope you do too.\"
May be with time our young players will get better too. There\'s always hope. We can always go visit them on Sundays.

Hey guys, thank for the reply.. I love good banter.
Okay first of al I wasn\'t addressing the defense as a whole. i was talking about the particular guys that our recent draft picks have replaced. I think overall they have been upgrades. Like I said I am not touching the Ricky Williams think because I can\'t necessarily make that case. But look at these guys who we replaced. TOMICH< FIELDS< CRAVER< NAEOLI<MITCHELL.. They were terrible. Joe Johnson was a great player but his knees are so bad. Do you people have any idea how bad his knees are? They are not going to hold up long and we would had to pay him a bundle of money. We were better off drafting a young studd like Charles Grant. WHo among you would rather have Joe Johnson right now rather than Charles Grant?
Secondly, you have to understand the concept of rebuilding. Sure you would like to replace a player with another of equal experience and ability but thats not always reality. Most of the time rebuilding means you have to get a young guy and develope him and be patient while he learns the game. What I will say oveall too is that the guys we have drafted are physically much more talented than who they replaced. Keith Mitchell was slow and undersized. I\'ll take the big and fast potential of Sedrick Hodge any day over Mitchells lack of ability AND production.
ALso somebody mentioned Wayne Martin.. What do you want to do.. keep a guy around who can barely walk just because he was a good player once.. You have to replace him. I am not happy with Norman Hand the last couple years any more than you are but Wayne Martin was OLD.
ONE MORE THING; MArk Fields.. You have got to be kidding me.. He never tackled and was always out of position. He had 5 years and never produced.
Remember guys, I only addressed the recent draft picks and who they replaced. I think we have done great overall. I wasn\'t comparing this defence to the defence three years ago. Don\'t jump to these conclusions if I don\'t say it. I wasn\'t talking about Orlano Ruff or Dale Carter or any of that. But since YOU brought them up let me say that I am not sold on Orlando Ruff at all. But Charlie Clemons was God Awefull last year and every morning I pray that Dale Carter doesn\'t have a drink.

F.B., Most of what you say is true. Yes we all want our young players to step up and be Pro Bowl caliber. To the best of my knowledge Craver is still with us. In my opinion he will be a big producer in the very near future. As for Ruff, the guy has the potentail to be a very good player. I hope he pans out.Your question about who would we rather have right at this moment between Johnson and Grant is a no brainer. With Johnson hurt, who would take him right this very minute. However, if this guy heals he is still very good. Now on to Charlie Clemons, If he were allowed to play his natural position (outside linebacker) who knows what he could do. Seems to me that when he was allowed to play that position he was very good. Last but not least Wayne Martin, yes he was old. I for one wanted to keep him on knowing he couldn\'t play to his full potential but i\'m a very loyal Martin fan. It seems that we all might have our own favorite players that we\'d like to keep with the Saints for life. We do however know that this is not possible. But we can wish for a Saints retirement home.

Who me pissed? wrong? NEVER! LOL :P
You know me, I\'m to old and slow to be wrong or pissed. LOL
As for me being busted, for an old fat man their not bad but Playboy will never want a picture of them. LOL

Wait a second, wait a second. The 3-13 defense was MORE TALENTED. Absolutely. FB brought up examples of new guys we brought in to replace old guys. I simply compared the 1999 starting defense to the 2003 projected starting defense. From where I stand, the talent comparision is a push. You cannot tell me that the d-line in \'02, for example, was better than Johnson, Glover, Martin, and Brady Smith in \'99. You cannot tell me that our linebackers were better last year than any group of linebackers that we\'ve ever had before. Our secondary was basically the same, so I don\'t know how you make an argument that the \'02 team was so much better.

But let\'s make things easy. If we\'ve gotten so much better on defense. If we\'ve replaced these \"bums\" with these young talented players, why was our defense ranked worse last year than it had been in any of the previous 10 years?

Hey guys, thanks for defending me a little bit.. I haven\'t posted messages on a football website for a long time and I forgot how fun it is.
WHodat, You have to understand one thing. I am not necessarily saying that our defense now is the best ever. In fact, I don\'t think its very good. Im not sold on Sedrick Hodge, James Allen, Orlando Ruff and a number of other players. What I am saying is that when a guy fails to produce you have to replace him. Example: Mark Fields failed to produce and he had to go. Sedrick Hodge might fail too. If he does he has to go. But we are better off with a guy you MIGHT fail than a guy who HAS failed. I particularly love the optimism that Joesam dispayes in many of his posts because he understands that we may not always agree with the players the Saints get but that they do have to purge lack of production and at least try to replace them. It doesn\'t matter if its a player that we all like (joe Johnson, Wayne Martin, Buford Jordon).
And the most recent example, Normand Hand. I was elated when we signed him three years ago but he took ten million dollars of Saints money and it went right to his belly. I hope those chicken wings were good.
Oh, and I am sorry but Joe Johnson wasn\'t worh keeping then and he certainly isn\'t worth having now. By the way.. Im not exactly going out on a limb here but if the Saints can manage to find any decent tackle on the market then Grady Jackson will be next.

By the way, Joesam.. When I referred to Craver earlier as a negative I was talking about former fullback Aaron Craver. Keyou Craver was an absolute steal in the 4th round last year and I believe that he is a future starter.

OK - I get your point and I don\'t disagree. I think the difference in opinion is that you believe that a lot of these players weren\'t worth keeping. I think they were. Fields, for example, was not run out of New Orleans. If I remember correctly, he left b/c we couldn\'t pay him what he wanted. The same was true of Johnson, who left in part due to money, and in part b/c he felt Mueller and the organization was screwing him. Who else would you like to bring up that has recently departed from the defense? Clemons? He is a better OLB than any guy we have on the team right now. He had something like 100 tackles and 13.5 sacks in \'01. One bad year at MLB, a position the Saints forced him to play, and now he\'s not worth keeping? Sammy Knight, a Pro Bowler in \'01, has a bad year in \'02 b/c our middle was softer than melted butter, and he becomes a throw away? Glover was \"too small\" and \"couldn\'t stop the run\". Well apparently neither could his replacements. Isn\'t Glover a fast guy who can put pressure on the QB? Isn\'t that what we\'re looking for at DT now? Were we better against the Run with Johnson and Glover or without? Was Bellamy a step up over Rob Kelly or Chad Cota? Nope. Was Thomas better than Ambrose? Not really, considering Ambrose just came back and will likely start over Thomas. I\'m not sure, but I\'ll bet you Keith Mitchell\'s numbers his last year as a Saint were better than Hodge\'s were last year.

I get what you\'re trying to say FB. In theory you\'re right. In practice however, the story is completely different. You can even talk about the offense if you really want to... Was Turley better than Roaf? Nope. Is Gandy expected to be better on the field than Turley? Nope. Did Pathon or Stallworth produce as much as Wille Jackson? Not even close. Were Deuce\'s numbers better than Ricky\'s - a little if you compare Ricky\'s \'01 to Deuce\'s \'02. But Ricky\'s \'02 blew Deuce\'s away. Look - I\'m not saying all of these moves were bad. I like almost all of the moves they made on the offensive side of the ball. However, I can honestly say that Tebucky Jones is the first guy that they have brought in on defense in three years who looks like he will be a definite step up over his predecesor (Jay Bellamy).

I love your posts Whodat and I glad that we can respectfully disagree. You make some god points.
With regards to Charlie Clemons, I might be a little confused. I don\'t remember him ever playing OLB. He was always a MLB. Since I wasn\'t sure I found at least 6 different old 2001 depth charts to support my sometimes faulty memory and they all had Charlie Clemons as our MLB with D Smith OLB and MItchell or Hodge at the other OLB. SO, I will proceed as though he was an MLB because thats what the Rams played him at and we signed him as. His best year in 2001 he only has 93 tackles. Thats only 5.8 a game. Pretty substandard for a starting MLB. Before you jump on me NO I DON\"T LIKE ORLANDO RUFF. The Texans project him as an OLB this year so I guess we will see.
Also, concerning many of the other players (particularly Sammy Knight) you must understand what defence Haslett wants to run. Its not that Knight is a bad player its that he doesn\'t fit into the system the Saints are trying to run.
this is the system.
inside defensive lineman and MLB stop the run while the ends rush the passer. The outside linebackers will be expected to provide coverage of tight ends and running backs or blitz depending on the defensive call (hence the need for speedster linebackers.
The secondary will be expected to do a lot of one on one coverage and basically cover the field when the linebackers blitz. Thats why we need speed and coverage ability in the secondary and thats why Sammy Knight doesn\'t fit in.
Glover couldn\'t stop the run.. thats why he is gone. Jackson and Hand could not stop the run last year BUT they were expected to.. THEY FAILED Hand is gone and Jackson will soon follow.
Its not that Knight and Glover and some others you mentioned were bad players its that they didn\'t fit into the system...
Incidentally its almost the exact same system run by the Philadelphia eagles..